Russian Blue
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: Piotr's returned from the dead and Kitty is thinking about the truth of it all...


Title: Russian Blue

Section:

Author: Manda

Rating: PG

Fandom: X-Men

A/N: Dedicated to Kah, because he put up the comic pic, and then I had to buy it this weekend. And because even though the girl said it's completely a lie to what the book actually covers, I think the picture is the perfect representation of them, if you know their story. And because he's so shippy on them, that he always brings that shippy of them out in me stronger.

Russian Blue.

It's a drink Pete would have whenever he was feeling flighty, wanted a laugh and to get kicked for the inevitable jokes he'd make about the name at her expense. Not with malice though. At least not often enough for it to really count.

But though she'd served it near every night in the bar the name never made her think of vodka or anything remotely alcoholic.

It made her think of many things in the one main thing, but most of all it made her think of back in her childhood when she had been normal before her life had become so amazing that even fiction writers would be stunned into disbelief. Before the near blinding headaches that only were solved by sleeping to death, which always had her waking up somewhere she hadn't gone to sleep.

They came on a normal day. A dance class day. And though she felt a respect for the bald man in the wheel chair and a longing she would later understand as wanted mothering by the woman with the long white hair, it was the quiet boy with the deep barrel laugh who truly peeked her interest, with dark, dark hair and deep, piercing eyes.

He was quiet, which many people mistake for simple. He was an artist, a painter, and a dedicated fighter. He was hard as steel and pliable as water. He blushed the color of spring roses and that blush always crept through his ears and neck. And their relationship at her tender age of fourteen could have been construed as utterly immoral in the eyes of the entire world.

He was her best friends brother. And her team mate forever. He was her first love. Her first real betrayal. And her first heart break. Which meant no one could truly ever compare, because no one else is ever your first. You measure them to your first, but rarely the other way.

She'd seen it many times, so she did know the truth. Russian Blue wasn't a drink, it was a color. All the Rasputin's bore that tragic and mystical color. It was the deep, bright blue of the sky over Russia. Beautiful and hard. Cold and welcoming. Distant and yet all around inside you.

She's seen that sky many times, and only the hardest trips stuck out now, because on those you stared at the sky to avoid looking elsewhere. The day they took Illyana back, her age reverted to around five. The day she went back to scatter Piotr's ashes over his homeland.

He wasn't the only one she buried that she loved either. But he was the straw that had broken her back and most locked away part of her child-heart.

Running away seemed best, even if she called it making it on her own. But then how likely is it living your own life when it doubles as perfect preppy computer "A" student during the day, leather wearing 'coyote ugly' waitress at night? And anything, anything, but admitting that she cried frequently about the fact she wanted to go home and her pride told her that now she couldn't.

So she was home again. This time trying to find the her she'd lost so long ago or the her she'd become, who was buried deep beneath all the loves, losses, battles, triumphs and trials that had covered and then smothered herself in her costume and duty.

So was he. Except his situation was drastically different in and of itself, too.

And there they stood. Their specific foot or so apart. And it was almost impossible to move and not to move. She wanted to touch him, hug him, kiss him, phase into him. Just to know he was real. She wanted to walk away, run away, and disappear. Just to avoid the ache inside her when she stared up at him.

He made a joke to try and make it easier, and somehow the entire moment seemed to parallel in her head the time on the hill when he told her while he'd been gone he'd fallen in love with someone behind her back, literally cheating on her. He was trying to make this easier for her.

He'd just returned from the dead. Been tortured for longer than they had any idea. He needed massive time to recuperate from his internal damage. And he was making jokes so it'd be easier on her.

And then she said the one thing she feared saying most. That coming back, maybe it was because he was supposed to be here. And they stood there in silence for a long minute or two and then he reached out and stroked her cheek.

He'd touched her before. When she'd found him in the room. But that had been to see if she was real. To cling for all life to something that looked familiar and seemed safe. And it hadn't been real for her either then. But now her eyes clouded over and her throat went dry on contact, and her shoulders shook without any control.

And so they just stared at each other. Her up into his eyes. And he just stared down into her soul. Eyes of blue. Russian Blue. The color of the sky. Beautiful and hard. Cold and welcoming. Distant and yet all around inside you.


End file.
